Vivian Bearing, a demanding and uncompromising professor of 17th century English poetry specializing in the holy sonnets of John Donne, is diagnosed with advanced (stage 4) metastatic ovarian cancer. Being an academic, she treats the news with a certain matter-of-factness much like she would her own research. Indeed, her medical team – the renowned Dr. Harvey Kelekian and his fellow, Dr. Jason Posner, who happens to be an ex-student of hers – do treat her solely like a research experiment, with a “live at all cost” mentality. The doctors recommend an experimental treatment of aggressive chemotherapy, to which she agrees. In part out of her own choice but in part out of her own personal circumstances, she decides to go through the treatment alone. But as her treatment progresses, she wishes she had some more truly caring human interaction from people who see her as a person and not just a research experiment. —IMDb
Mike Nichols (born Nov. 6, 1931, Berlin, Ger.) American motion-picture and stage director whose productions focus on the absurdities and horrors of modern life as revealed in personal relationships.
Nichols immigrated with his family to the United States at the age of seven. He attended the University of Chicago (1950–53), studied acting under Lee Strasberg in New York City, and then returned to Chicago, where, with Elaine May, Shelley Berman, Barbara Harris, and Paul Sills, he formed the comic improvisational group The Compass Players. Nichols and May then traveled nationwide with their social-satire routines, and from 1960 to 1961 they performed on Broadway in An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May.
Nichols made his Broadway directorial debut with the highly praised Barefoot in the Park (1963) and went on to direct a series of commercially and critically successful Broadway plays, many written by Neil Simon. He won Tony awards for Barefoot in the Park, Luv (1964… read more
Emma Thompson gives an intelligent, luminous and brave performance here in the adaptation of Margaret Edson's play. Nichols does a good job of opening up the play to cinematic boundaries by surronding Thompson with a strong supporting cast. The use of the Gorecki music really adds to the pathos of the film without becoming a maudlin affair. Many wonderful scenes especially "The Runaway Bunny". A real treat.
Thompson puts in a great understated performance, which is admirable considering the overtly melodramatic theme. As a film, it only further convinces me that Nichols fails at times when adapting work from the stage. While I enjoyed this (as much as one can ENJOY a work of this content), as well as Virginia Woolf, I must admit that I wish Nichols made these adaptations just a tad more cinematic in nature.
